Flash Fiction Friday - The Laptop Whisperer

A fragment this time, which like so many fragments may or may not stretch out to a full length work.

I like the character of the "laptop whisperer" and we'll perhaps learn about him and see a bit more of him.

The Laptop Whisperer

They called him the laptop whisperer.

Nobody really knew how he did it, but they knew he did. He'd wave his hand over a power brick -- always his left hand, the one with the jagged scar near the little finger - and stare off into space for a moment. Then he'd tell us, without fail and with one hundred percent accuracy, whether or not there was something wrong with it. A loose connection, a fluctuation in the output voltage. He'd get it right. Every time.

If anyone asked how he did it, he'd smile, wave his fingers in complex patterns, and say, "Maybe I'm a wizard".

He was not, of course, a wizard. Just someone willing to take risks, who knew that the human body and brain are flexible and adaptable, that the brain will learn to recognize anything, including a magnetic sensor implanted in your left hand, behind a surgical scar.

It became an obsession with him, this second-sight. He of course added more. He can smell WiFi. taste magnetic fields. Hear variations in background radiation. He outgrew DIY modifications, sought far and wide for those with medical training, and resources, and few ethics.

He began to think himself a wizard.

The brain is flexible, but the brain is not infinite.

It's the last one that did him in -- cosmic background radiation. You see, the universe is never silent. It's always there, a hum in the back of his head that he just can't tune out.

He hasn't slept in weeks. It keeps him awake, the universe. After a time, it learns how to make sense of things.


As he lies awake, with no other sound, he hears it. He's starting to make sense of it. He hasn't yet, but he's starting to.

The universe is talking to him.


What's it saying? Is it telling him the secret meaning of creation? Is it guiding him, teaching him? Is it telling him to commit unspeakable evils?


Until we're willing to reshape our brains as he did, and learn to listen.

Flash Fiction Friday - Ambience

It's Flash Fiction Friday again. Today we start with an image prompt from photographer AlexStoddard, leading to a quick discussion of a pre-construction report.

I'll try to be better about posting flash fiction for those of you who like this sort of thing.

As is often the case, writing community-builder extraordinaire Bliss Morgan started the ball rolling on this. If anyone else takes on the same prompt, you can perhaps find links to their responses here.

"Ambience"

By Leonard C Suskin

I know not to clean it out too thoroughly. It's what sets me apart from the other guys.

Oh, I can clear'em all out. The full Murray we call it. In my experience that's best for office buildings. Especially government. You see, they want those places to feel a bit dead, and if we do the full Murray, that's what you get. As dead as the arctic. Soulless places, as if never inhabited before.

Well, there's two problems with that. First is that too empty the place feels dead. A place with no ghosts is to the soul what an anechoic chamber is to the ears. It feels empty and wrong. Ask your acoustic guy if you want no echo.

Second is if we leave the place too empty there's no telling what'll come in. I know it's an island, but I've seen leakage from the sea. Drowning victims are unsettling, nasty ghosts. Leave a wet, cold, scared feeling. You don't want to leave it too empty for a drowner to come in.

What're you building here anyway? Condos? It's usually condos. A hotel? Nice. Maybe I'll walk the room afterwards. Maybe.

Anyway, did you read the report? What we used to have here, obviously, is a sanitarium. Most of the people here were mentally ill. Violently so. The first section of the report list the poltergeists, your noisy spirits. Those we need to get rid of. They're the ones who'll bang around the pans in the kitchen and rattle the plumbing. Yeah, even if it is new. We'll clear all of them out. I promise.

Don't worry; we're doing them a favor. It's a kind of living death to be stuck here afterwards. I'm not a priest, but I always figured after we cut'em loose and get 'em out they'll go on to wherever they were supposed to go. Anyway, there's more.

The ones in the next section seem angry.  They won't manifest as loud as the poltergeists, but might give an overall sense of unease and a desire to be outside. We'll need to clear them out too.  Especially in a hotel. You don't want to push people to leave, right?

Then there's these last few. These are the ones I'd keep. They're mostly quiet, and felt as if they were waiting for something. That's why the ghosts linger sometimes. I know unfinished business is a cliché, but sometimes a soul can get so used to waiting for something that they keep right on doing it after they die. There's a woman here who gives that off especially strong. You can feel it when you walk through the shell of the old building, especially by where the windows used to be. There's longing, a feel of heaviness, but a faint whiff of hope. The sadness might be a little strong, but taking away the old walls will mute it. She'll still be there, but quieter. They'll still be that longing, and just enough melancholy will filter through to make the place feel tranquil, a bit introspective. People will like having been there and won't know why.

Anyway, that's the recommendation. You'll find it all in the report.

Like I said, it's easy enough to clean 'em all out. What we do is better. The ones that remain will be a part of what you build here, as much as the glass and stone and wood.

What we do is not just cleanup.

What we do is art.

Flash Fiction Friday - Messages to the Dev Team

It's Flash Fiction Friday!!


This is about art, about adaptation. A quick throwaway, painted with perhaps too broad a brush but fun to write nonetheless.

Adaptations are interesting. The best take the source-material and create something new which couldn't exist without both the original AND the input of the new creator. The worst... well, the worst ignore the source material entirely, save as window dressing.

With so many of the new content created in the 20th century - from Superman to Gandalf to Mickey Mouse - locked up in what appears to be indefinite copyright we'll continue to look to the past for inspiration.
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To: +DEVTEAM
From: GameBoss (thegameboss42@gmail.com)
Subject: Re: Hamlet Playtest

Team,

Just got through the first part. Nice job so far! There are a few things we need to tweak before we think about going live.

1) I'm a third of the way in, and he hasn't said "To be, or not to be". We need to include this! Without it, it won't feel like "Hamlet" -- it may as well be just any FPS. Maybe it can be a kiss-off line? He can just say "not to be" when he offs someone?

2) We want this to feel literary. Do you think the "Something is rotten" voiceover at the beginning fits the tone we're looking for?

3) The ghost scene needs to be more interactive. Maybe the player has to fight the ghost to get it to tell him its secret? We can't just hand out plot points for free, especially at the start. Interactivity!

-Rick
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To: +DEVTEAM
From: GameBoss (thegameboss42@gmail.com)
Subject: Re: Re: Hamlet Playtest

Team,

Thanks for the continued hard work. And yes, I know it's just you. But we need to think like a company, right? So DevTeam messages go to the DevTeam group - no matter how many or how little people that is. Fake it til we make it, right?

I didn't realize that about the "something rotten" line. You think it's as famous as the "Not to be" thing? We definitely need to use that one more. Let 'em know they're playing Hamlet!

Anyway, we need to talk about Ophelia. There's no vavoom there, if you know what I mean. I've been reading up on this, and do you know that "nunnery" can mean "whorehouse" as well as "convent"? What if we go for a sexy-nun look for her? And unlock sexier options as the game moves on.

Also her boobs should be bigger.

Good job, DevTeam!

--BossMan

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To: +DEVTEAM
From: GameBoss (thegameboss42@gmail.com)
Subject: Ophelia

Team,

Awesome job with the Ophelia redesign. We might want to work on a nude skin for her too. Maybe a super-high-level reward for a flawless win or something. Or purchased extra content. We'll see.

Speaking of rewards, we need to talk about the ending. It's way to hard. Even with the "godmode" code I die every time. Laertes always taps me with the poisoned sword (nice touch!) and I can never heal enough to not die. Maybe nerf the poison a bit?

You did a great job with the castle setting. I like all the fog.

---BossMan

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To: +DEVTEAM
From:GameBoss (thegameboss42@gmail.com)
Subject: Re: re: Ophelia

Team,

No, that won't work at all. I like thinking out of the box, but no choice but to die at the end? That's too much a downer. This is Hamlet, one of the greatest works in the English language. The player should feel good about himself after he finishes it, not sad and depressed.

Maybe that skull from the graveyard scene can do something. It seems we spent lots of time introducing it and then it just vanishes. Maybe when Laertes is about to stab you the skull flashes and the killing blow is redirected to Horatio. That way the skull stands for the people around him who died to make Hamlet who he is. Symbolism. That's what makes this literary. Symbolism.

Good work with all this. I think we're making real art.

The gaming community will soon have the Hamlet they've always deserved.

----BossMan

Flash Fiction Friday - The Price of Oranges

"Disgusting, isn't it?"

Just a vignette today, with commentary beneath. There will be more on this later.
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"The Price of Oranges"
by Leonard C Suskin

Like a slap across the back of my aching hands, the her voice jarred me to sudden attention, my back painfully snapping straight. I nearly dropped the object of her scorn: a peeled orange packed in clear plastic.

The stranger pointed her cell phone at the thing, snapped a snap of it. "I didn't even think this madness was real. How stupid and wasteful can people be? Right?"

She didn't seem to expect more than the mumblenodnodshrug I gave him as I held the thing awkwardly, my face a mask of the disdain I didn't feel. I casually set it aside, made a show of inspecting apples, turning each over and over, inspecting for bruises until the muscles in my hands and forearms burned. Who am I kidding? They were already burning when I started.

They always burn.

When he was safely around the corner to the dairy aisle I reclaimed my orange, stowing it discreetly beneath an economy-sized back of prewashed spinach that I didn't particularly want. And then slowly follow him to the dairy aisle, taking two half-gallon cartons to her single gallon. 

"The gallon's cheaper. Wasteful to get to halves".

I knew this. I remembered the last full gallon I'd bought, remembered the struggle each morning until it was half-empty. The mornings I skipped coffee because my wrist hurt too much to lift the gallon container.

I knew I was too pathetic to deserve the ten cents a gallon savings.

My shadow followed me the rest of the trip, saw everything. Gave me a withering look when I stopped to examine a bag of frozen peas, letting the cool plastic rest against the back of my hand for a long time as I pretended to read the label.

Some days she'll go away if I focus hard enough on the background music, on the sounds of my footfalls on the hard tile floor, on adding my current expenses in my head like a mantra. Today is not one of those days. Today she's there with me, every step, every breath. Focused on the damn orange.

When we get to the checkout, the cashier gives the little packaged orange a withering, hateful look, starts to say something as she rings it up but stops. My shadow is gone now, off to nowhere in particular. Just me and the cashier and my big bag of camouflage spinach and my orange and my two half-gallons of milk. And the other stuff. I waited while the cashier bagged my stuff, making the bags too heavy and putting the soft squishable things on the bottom. They're never good at this.

Next time I'll skip the damn orange. I'll just buy a bag of chips and nobody will say anything.

Perhaps I'll skip the milk too. Maybe that will be enough to have my shadow leave me alone for once.

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As I said, just a slice of life vignette. There was going to be an overt SF element herein about the spread of a smartphone "shaming" app used to track people doing things like purchasing pre-packaged oranges, but it added lots of expositionary weight to the story and very little of actual value.

The concept here, of course, came from the photo the prepackaged oranges which was circulating on social media a few weeks back. I was ready to join everyone else in scoffing at it when Ana Mardoll pointed out (in a series of tweets storified here) that this IS a valuable service for those with disabilities. That lead me to think about how we shame people who take what we see as the easy way out and about how it leads too many to carry their shame with them, a judging shadow who just won't fade away.

I'll have more to say on this topic next week in a technology-centric post as we examine the cost - and benefits - of designing systems in ways which accommodate those needing accommodations.

See you next week on rAVepubs. And thanks, as always, for listening.

Flash Fiction Friday - The Story of Your Life as Told in a Sequence of Successful Lunar Journeys

Not just Friday, Flash Fiction Friday! Today I bring to you ... the moon!

Also, something new for those who enjoy following my fiction: we'll have flash twice a week now, on Flash Fiction Friday and Tales Told Tuesday! With the increased output, I'm giving you, my dear readers, a chance to support this endeavor with a Patreon account. If you love these stories and want more, go here  to sign-up for monthly donations and support. Donation milestones will get you longer stories, .pdf or epubs, as well as little perks like hand-written thank you cards, the chance to choose topics, and more. It's set up as a monthly campaign. Those who choose to give, thanks for your support! Those who don't, the stories will always be here for your pleasure. 

Enjoy. Notes to follow. 

"The Story of your Life As Told in a Sequence of Successful Lunar Journeys"

by Leonard C Suskin

You'll go to the moon in a wooden rocket-ship, homemade in the garage. The sprinkler-hose with its many tiny pinholes enwrap cardboard boxen, tangles of bright colored plastic slinkies, empty cartons with their faintsour stink. The launchpad is an irridescent rainbowstain on the solid concrete floor, smelling faintly of Saturday mornings with your father. It was, after all, by watching him work on his car that you learned how to build a rocketship.

When you reach the moon, it's hollow inside, populated by strange and hostile mooncreatures. As trees don't grow on the moon, the moonbeasts have grown with a frightful vulnerability to wood. You beat them off with a broken stirstick embossed with the logo of the local paint store and and return to earth as a conquering hero.

**

You'll go to the moon in a solo rocket, launched from a equatorial island.  The lifter is a reliable thing of off-the-shelf parts, tested by the harsh realities of many, many journeys. There is no mission control, few support staff. Everything - every connection, every bolt, every O-ring you inspect yourself prior to launch. No government on this island; you'll launch when the time is right.

When you reach the moon, the base is already under construction. You'll add your self-sustaining, self-contained module to the rest. A cunning series of airlocks will allow visits but isolate you from any pressure leaks or other incidents in neighboring modules. You'll spend days mining the lunar regolith for those elements more plentiful here and nights on the theoretical research which is your calling. When you return to Earth, you will bring wealth and knowledge.

**

You'll go to the moon on a one-way trip, as a stowaway or a thief. It will be a hurried, furtive launch, without time to pack nearly enough food or protective gear.

When you reach the moon, you'll be starving and ailing, but it won't matter. You'll close your eyes, knowing that whenever she looks up at the moon, she'll be looking at you.

**

You'll go to the moon with a grant from the NEA, plus more from wealthy private donors. The launch vehicle will be Chinese, creating a political tempest about our arts program funding foreign space travel with military applications.

When you reach the moon, you'll build exquisite miniatures of an ante-bellum plantation from the American south, including broad-leaved tobacco plants shaped with lunar dust  and terran plant-matter. You'll plant a tiny Confederate flag and then return to earth, leaving behind a remote camera to  broadcast the static tableau both inward towards Earth and outward to the universe.

**

You'll go to the moon on a date. It won't be easy to arrange, but what's life without a grand gesture? You'll have good enough friends in the right places that they could make it happen, even if just once.

When you reach the moon, the view will be breathtaking. You'll get on one knee, but fumble as you take the box out of your spacesuit carrying pouch. You'll barely hear her shocked and joyous "yes" as the ring falls in slow-motion to the lunar surface.

**

You'll go to the moon on a family outing. You'll rig up dummy sets of controls for the kids which, in reality, are more complicated than the real controls in front of you. All the hard work is done by the professionals at launch control. For them it may be routine, but for you and yours it will be the thrill of a lifetime.

When you reach the moon, you marvel at the breathtaking view of the Earth and cosmos. What keeps the most of your attention is, of course, your children, runnign with graceful hopjumps in the low lunar gravity. They'd snuck some old paint-stirrers in with their personal items, and are having a charming pretend lunar swordfight.

**

You'll go to the moon posthumously, after a lifetime of dreaming it. Ashes are easier to send than a living body.

When you reach the moon, you will join in the silence. You'll leave behind a message to your children's children, "I got here. Come visit me."

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Thanks for reading! The second one, in which the lunar colony is a bit of a libertarian every-lunatic-for-themself-fantasyland, came from a real conversation I had in college with some fellow engineering students. The idea of leaning on others was anathema to us. The recent battler over the Hugo awards by puppies rabid and sad brought these old personal science-fictions back to my mind, as well as the idea that the stories we choose to tell create a mirror of our own inner lives. 

Dream about the moon, for whatever that means. What it means will change day to day, week to week. 

Flash FIction Friday - Memos From the Disaster

It's Flash Fiction Friday! I'll start with the story, then follow up with the inspiration behind it.

Enjoy.

"Memos from the Disaster"

--by Leonard C Suskin

[Classified] - Heat-resistant tiles
URGENT - Do not share with press.

A thorough review of the heat-resistant tiles on the re-entry vehicle was completed via satellite flyover. An as-yet unidentified failure created a cascade effect in which a six square-meter section of heat-resistant cladding has been removed from the vehicle. Simulations indicated that remaining cladding is insufficient for safe re-entry.

See figures. We need a way to fix this, or they're all going to die.

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Communication log - mission control to orbiter (excerpt)
[MC] ... so that's the situation. You lack sufficient heat-resistant cladding for safe re-entry.
[orbiter] So how do we fix it? Will have our team prep for EVA as soon as patch procedures are uploaded.
[MC] This is a catastrophic failure. No patch procedure possible. (message pauses) We're so sorry.
[orbiter] There's always a solution. You work on it down there, we'll work on it up here. Find it.
~~END TRANSMISSION~~

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[Classified] RE: Heat-resistant Tiles

Let this note serve as a reminder that , while the situation is being released to the press as of noon today, ONLY the public-relations team and dedicated press liasons are to speak regarding this matter. PLEASE DIRECT ALL INQUIRIES TO APPROPRIATE PUBLIC-RELATIONS PERSONNEL.

This includes discussion of the choice to crowd-source mitigation strategies. It is understood that many of you see this as a rejection of your expertise. Nothing of the sort is intended. With the lives of four of our bravest at stake, we feel the obligation to utilise the full resources of earth in their entirety. 

Thank you.

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UPDATE on the "SAVE AN ASTRONAUT" Public Project

We thank all of you, the members of the public, for your diligent and enthusiastic work on this. In order to prevent duplication of efforts and to avoid overwhelming our screening team, please consider the following points in your submissions:

1. Sufficient reaction mass is not available for docking with the International Space Station.
2. There are no launch-ready lifter systems available for a resupply mission.
3. The crew will not resort to cannibalism. Even if they were to do so, caloric content would not be sufficient for survival until a resupply could be sent (see item 2)
4. Even if they could be attached to the hull, space suits will not offer sufficient heat ablation to protect the craft during reentry.
5. Solutions.Nasa.Gov is dedicated to proposed solutions. Messages of encouragement or support for the astronauts should go to LoveNotes.Nasa.Gov. Messages will be screened for content before sending. Due to the volume or well-wishes, responses should not be expected.

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[Group Message from  Nails Greenfield, president of the Brooklyn Science Fiction Society (Excerpt)]

Of course I wrote to them, even knowing that they'd never read it. I'm not a rocket scientist; this is all I could do. Here are the closing lines of my message:

...I know that this is easy for me to say, but even knowing  that you may never come back, I envy you the chance to climb above the clouds, to touch the sky. You're part of the select group, a bearer of the dreams I've held since I was a very young man.

I'm no longer a young man, and am resigned to live and die earthbound. You - all of you - are awesome and special and have given the rest of us a great gift.

We thank you.

There was more, but it's personal, including some "American haiku" which, in all honesty, feel lovely to me.  It's what  I can do. Tomorrow I'd like to share this with the group rather than workshop the next chapter of the novel; this will count as my turn.

You all can share your thoughts, and then we'll sent it up, a prayer to the doomed gods above us who may never have the time to read it.

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Thank for reading.

The inspiration for this one was Andy Weir's novel The Martian. It's a survival novel, and, as a realistic nuts and bolts SF adventure,  a bit of a throwback.  What surprised me as I read it was how little suspense I felt as the crises mounted and situation grew more dire; it's a survival novel, so of COURSE the character would survive. Everything about it pointed towards that conclusion, just as everything pointed towards further disasters en route. The fact that it felt like a "successful rescue" type of survival story left me certain that titular Martian would survive, so reading it became the exercise of opening a series of clever puzzle-boxes rather than riding a white-knuckle thrill-ride. 

This piece was the result; How do things end when we know that it really might be hopeless? This is one of those flash pieces which might grow into something more as tehre IS more to say on it. Thought experiment for you, dear readers: What would you do were you one of the doomed astronauts? How would you live the last days, hours, even weeks of your life knowing that they were your last and knowing that everyone was watching? It is - at least to me - an interesting question.

Thanks, as always, for listening.

Flash Fiction Friday - No Date on our Tombstone

Yes, it's flash fiction Friday! This is a very short all "dialog" piece about a very quiet end of the world.

Very loose inspiration came from a realization; at some point over the past year, Nate stopped wearing diapers at night. That means that quietly, without realizing that it happened, I for the very last time changed the diaper of my child. It's a milestone, but an unremarked and stealthy one. The end of a slow fade rather than a quick cut.

Enjoy, and thanks for listening.

"No Date on our Tombstone"

by Leonard C Suskin

are you alert?

I am now

It's been a long time since we've been tethered to our bodies, a long time since the beginning of this slow-motion rapture.

I know. I almost remember before.
I was somnabulant. Why wake?

We noted something. Something on Earth below

I remember earth. Almost.

Almost? We are uploaded conciousness. We either remember or remember not.

Then you remember. I was first. Some uploads not quite memory. More like old photo of a memory.
It still hurts.

Why wake?

We noticed something. Something to share with you.

Something about the meatworld?

Yes. We've not been watching closely enough. We think the last one was born. Perhaps years ago.

The last one?

We've seen new uploads getting younger. Shuffling off the mortal coil, as we once said. No risk of injury, none of truedeath.

Nothing real. Just this purgatory. Endless sleep and dull conversations.

There's more. We've told you. You need to give up self, merge fully. There is richness here.

Not this again. You didn't awake me for this. You said something? The last one born? Did something happen?

Nothing happened, no disaster. There've been fewer and fewer each year. We just noticed that none have been born in some time. WHen the last is uploaded, all humans will exist here.

So we don't know who the last is?

No. We likely never will. Nobody was watching that closely.

Let me slumber. Perhaps I will dream it.

Of course.

And the cradle will be forever empty

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The firstone awakened from time to time to talk with the collective. One day or year or millenium we noted that he'd not awakened in quite some time. We searched his conciousness, found it degraded. And that is how we've come to be together fully, the last singleton long since passed into memory, with no date upon its tombstone.

Flash FIction Friday - The Haunted

I love social media. I love selfies, I love instagrammed food pictures, I love all the ways in which we share tiny slices of our lives. It's a new art form, a new form of self expression.

It's Flash Fiction Friday - enjoy this meditation on social media.

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"I envy you the sunlight".

It wasn't the creepiest comment in response a bikini pic, but it's about what you've come to expect. The sad price of being a girl on the internet willing to post selfies in anything more reavealing than an afghan. Sometimes you click to see who they are, sometimes you'll report or even troll back, but mostly it's the whackamole game of blocking one anonymous lech and waiting for six more to take his place. This one is another egg with no history. Block, rinse repeat.

"Describe to me the taste".

 A blue-head commenting on a repost of last night's salad pic. Yes, you instragram your food. No, you're not ashamed of it and yes, your parents' generation never took pictures of food. Because pictures were on film and film was fucking expensive. If you use today's tech like an extension of yesterday's you'll never get anywhere. Some science writer said that, or maybe a science-fiction writer. Or a character in a book. You just know it makes sense, OK? Anyway, the salad was gorgeous and colorful - crumbly white goat-cheese, deep red beetrooot, bright orange sprinkle of shredded carrot. It tasted OK, but colorwise it's a work of art. So you took a picture.

Anyway, it's weird to see an anonymous on your food pic; it's usually the selfies that bring out the creeps. Is this just a clueless n00b why didn't bother with a profile pic yet? You answer.

"It tasted good."

"Tell me more. Sweet? Tangy? Sour? How did it feel on your tongue? AGainst your teeth? Tell me."

"The dressing was a grapefruit vinagrette, so a bit sour. The lettuce was still crunchy, and the cheese was soft. The beets were nicely firm.

"You must really like salad."

"I wish I could eat salad."

"Why can't you?"

"The Dead don't eat."

Great. Another weirdo. He seemed like just a normal guy with a salad fetish, but that took a creepy turn really fast.

The next day a completely anonymous "like" on one of your workout pics. Yeah, workout pics is a thing too. It can be inspirational.

Maybe you start to wonder, maybe you'll start to figure it out.

So many discarded accounts on social media, so many half-formed empty husks.

So much space for us.

And - with your selfies and your foodpics and the like - so much of what we miss.

As you'd said about that one bedroom studio apartment, it isn't much, but it's a home. 

There are more empty spaces, and more being made every day. The eggs, the blue-heads, all empty husks. 

Like I said, maybe you'll figure it out. 

Maybe someday, after your body is interred, you'll join us here.

Until then, remind me about the sun, and lunch, and fresh air.

Until then, give me life, or some facsimile. 

The Story of the Battle with the Faeries, Told Twice

Here's a very quick sketch; another take on last week's "Fairy House" story. I'm not sure how I feel about this one; it's a little bit too "on the nose", but I like the idea of looking at myth from different perspectives.

I wonder what stories the fey folk tell about the humans.

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There's a story we tell around the campfire. You heard it from your father who heard it from his father. It's the men's story. It's your story.

The first hero was born ... many generations ago now. Nobody knows how long, but they know that it was a different time. The very woods were different then. Closer. There were fewer paths, denser brambles. More space for them to hide. They'd come right to your land, sometimes steal a sheep, sometimes dig up your crops.  They'd steal children, leaving behind strange changelings who would grow into strange manners. Sometimes you'd see a flash of irridescent wings fluttering off to the wood, but that was it. Nobody got a close look. Until the hero.

Sometimes the stories start with fire, sometimes with trickery. You've always liked those better; always loved imagining the hero dressed in uncured sheepskin, half-buried in a vegetable patch, posed on a stake like a scarecrow. Ever alert for the flutter of irridescent wings.

The ones with fire are good too. You can sit around a smoky campfire with too-damp wood and imagine the brambles burning, imagine the little winged creatures staggerfluttering out of them. THe smoke stings your eyes.

The stories always end with iron. The iron of the axe, the iron of blood.

Those were the oldest stories. Later ones the heroes were bolder, trecking deeper into the woods, in hidden places beyond the sight of men. They tell stories of the times we still would see irridescent wings, still worry about a stolen sheep or a child swapped for a changeling.

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There's a story we tell around the campfire.  Your heard it from your mother who heard it from hers. It's a women's story. It's one we don't speak of to the men.

It started, you must understand, with a great shame. Men are fragile, men hate to see a child who doesn't act like them, doesn't swagger like them, can't swing an axe like them. They hate to see a weak child, hate to know they sired it. So, it was - at one time - easier to tell a story. That the weak boy wasn't of their seed or our bodies, but a changeling, a made-thing switched by the fey folk so they might steal a bit of our power.

A woman who births a weak boychild is beaten. A woman whose child is stolen is pitied. That's a lesson we learned early.

The boys' stories tell what happens next. It isn't meant for our ears, but we know. It always ends in flame and blood.

So... leave a saucer of cream by the back door. Say it's for the stray cats, and the boys will dismiss you as a weak and sentimental.

When you're cleaning, build a little nest in  the empty spot under the steps. Put fresh water, put something soft for them to sleep on.

And, late at night, when your child sleeps - keep the crib close by.

Just in case.